It’s a nightmare situation for even the most senior traveller: Everyone’s buckled in, prepared for takeoff, and someone’s newborn baby won’t. Stop. Crying.
Rebekka Garvison was boarding an early-morning flight from Michigan to Alabama on Sept. 24 with her infant daughter Rylee. They were travelling to Fort Rucker to visit her husband Nick Garvsion, a soldier in the U.S. Army.
And Rylee was cranky.
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Garvison asked a flight attendant to move her to another row as young Rylee’s crying got worse.
That put her next to Nyfesha Miller. And that changed everything.
“I’m not sure if she could tell how stressed and upset I looked or what, but she turned our day completely around,” Garvison wrote. “Rylee wouldn’t stop crying no matter what I would try and do. … So she had asked if I didn’t mind if she tried. And of course I let her.”
According to Garvison, Rylee stopped crying the minute Miller began cradling her, and the two of them – the crying infant and the complete stranger – fell asleep in each other’s arms.
“When we got in the air she fell right asleep and slept in her lap the whole flight until we got to our gate. She even carried her off the plane and held her so I could get the stroller and carseat put back together so I wasn’t struggling to try and do it all alone.”
Garvison’s Facebook note had been shared more than 100,000 times as of Friday. It also drew the attention of celebrities such as Criminal Minds star Shemar Moore as well as major media outlets in the U.S.
“Honestly it’s just really overwhelming all the feedback, we never imagined this to take off like it has,” Garvison told CBS News. “You don’t really see anyone really stepping up like that and in today’s world with all the negativity that was really something I thought deserved recognition.”
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Miller says she was more than happy to take care of the crying infant for a couple of hours.
“To have the baby in my arms, take to me the way she did, and then fall asleep, it comforted me,” Miller told CBS “And I told her, I said this really was a blessing to me in disguise, you don’t understand, I loved having her.”
To make things even more adorable, the two were reunited on the flight back from Alabama on Wednesday, giving the grateful mother a chance to thank the kind stranger who helped her relax – if only for a few hours.
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